Page 102 of Tempest

Across from him, the Esperese pirate leaned to pat him on the shoulder. “My apologies, Brimley. You had family there, yes?”

“S’pose I should be grateful my mam up and died last winter,” Brimley replied, sniffing hard. He scrubbed at his eyes, but no tears fell, his face only growing redder.

“Cavallid,” the Itziman muttered, nudging at the Esperese. “What is Allisport?

The bearded pirate gave him a sharp look. “A city in the Meridian Empire. A city for sailors.”

“A city for half the navy,” Brimley said, his voice thick with emotion. “The Meridian fleet will be in tatters.”

“Then it is a good thing you no longer sail for it,” the Itziman replied shrewdly.

“Indeed, Mr. Garedo,” Brimley muttered.

Cat blinked at the pirate, looking at him through a new lens. “You defected? You left the navy?” she said with true surprise. She tried to picture him in a naval uniform, with a tricorne hat and a clean-shaven face.

Nodding, Brimley settled back in his seat. “Aye, two months ago.”

Then he sailed with Captain Errol. He served on this very ship when it was captured. Cat did her best to keep her face blank. She could not help but think of the letters in Kane’s cabin, written by men she assumed were dead.

Brimley was proof of another path.

“How did you hear of Allisport?” he said, voice gruff.

“Another ship brought word to the Venerable and Captain Quine.”

Word of Allisport, and their orders to sail back across the ocean. But the trio of pirates did not need to know the last part. Information was Cat’s only weapon. She did not intend to squander anything too soon.

“Quine was captain of the Venerable?” Brimley winced. “I am sorry to hear that.”

Cat blanched. “You knew him?”

“I knew his reputation,” he said, his focus now back on his cards. Frowning, he played a black star in reverse, altering the direction of play. The course of the river. “He was far softer than most captains of the navy.”

Softer. After only a few days on Captain Quine’s ship, she would hardly call the man soft by any measure. But he was certainly fair and just with his crew. After all, he held the other ship so they could write letters to send back to Meridia. She supposed it was a great kindness, in his position, to hold against the waves a little longer and allow his men to grasp for a little bit of home.

Cat said nothing, and the hand went around the table in silence, from Brimley to Garedo to Cavallid. She turned their names over, committing them to memory. All three of them were fair enough at the game. But Cat’s eyes glittered, following the cards, counting them off in their suits. Sword, stars. Crescents, diamonds. And hunting through the deck for the single red X. To draw, to play, or to accuse.

It looked like a game of luck, but Cat knew better.

Softly, she put her lamp down before laying both hands on the table. A pile of pennies glittered inches away. Little compared to the size of her ransom, but still more than she had.

“Do you mind if I join the next hand?”

* * *

CAT PILED HER winnings neatly on her edge of the table: two pearls, a turtle shell bowl, ten pennies, and one silver Esperese coin winking in the light. After losing so much to the Lyrian Sea, the little pile felt like a treasure hoard. Cat could not help but errantly stroke the coin, feeling the stamp of the Esperese cross beneath her finger. A voice in her head told her to finish the game, stand up from the table, and sweep her winnings into her skirt. To leave with something, small as it was. But that voice was weak, fading with every hand.

Besides, she could hardly leave the table, and the men gathered around it. Their stunned silence and stilted words were long gone, replaced by an amiable manner Cat had not enjoyed in a very long time.

The smell of rum wafted from her left side, where Brimley sat giggling into his ration, his hand discarded after his purse ran dry. But he remained, ribbing Garedo and Cavallid as they steadily lost hand after hand to a Meridian lady. And he wasn’t alone. Two other members of the crew joined him to watch, the cabin boy Ratter and the grizzled old cook named Cook.

It was a moonless night, the stars ever brighter for its absence. They glittered beyond the shadows of the sails, pinpricking the perfect black of the sky. Cook was good enough to bring another lantern, and the six of them huddled in the little circle of warm light.

“She’s going to bankrupt you two if you don’t come to your senses,” Brimley chortled, showing uneven teeth. “Put it up and go to sleep.”

“You go to sleep, Brimley,” Cavallid snapped from behind his fanned cards.

“And miss all the fun?” Brimley sloshed back another mouthful of rum. “Hardly.”